Professor Jeffrey Mehlman, influential French literature scholar and translator, dies at 82

Jeffrey Mehlman, a distinguished professor of French and French literature, passed away recently at the age of 82. Born in New York in 1944, Mehlman died in a Newton, Massachusetts clinic due to respiratory difficulties. He was celebrated not only as a writer and historian of ideas but also as an exceptional literary critic and translator.

Mehlman's academic career included prestigious positions at universities such as Cornell, Yale, Johns Hopkins, and for many years, he was a professor of French Literature at Boston University. He also held visiting professorships at Harvard, UC Berkeley, and MIT. His significant contribution to American academia was introducing French structuralism from the 1950s and 1960s to the United States, applying this intellectual current to his own scholarly work.

As a translator, Mehlman was instrumental in bringing the works of influential French thinkers like Jacques Derrida, Jacques Lacan, Roland Barthes, and Michel de Certeau into English. He authored several key essays and books, including "A Structural Study of Autobiography: Proust, Leiris, Sartre" (1974), "Revolution and Repetition: Marx, Hugo, Balzac" (1977), and the widely acclaimed "Émigré New York," which explored European intellectuals and artists who found refuge in the city during World War II.

Mehlman shared a deep personal and intellectual connection with Argentina through his wife, Alicia Borinsky, a writer and professor of Latin American Literature at Boston University. The couple frequently visited Buenos Aires, where Mehlman, a fluent Spanish speaker with a subtle sense of humor, would accompany Borinsky on her annual trips. Together, they taught Argentine literature and culture to American students, and were known to be accomplished tango dancers.